1. Sports: Oct 2014
   1. 17th ASIAN games
   2. Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ)
   3. Hockey
   4. HERO Indian Super league Football
   5. World Kabaddi League (WKL)
   6. Tennis
   7. Misc.
   8. Sportsmen in controversy
   9. IPL match fixing probe
   10. Paes vs Patriotism
   11. Sarita Devi’s boxing medal
   12. Foreign players in controversy
2. Business GK: October 2014
   1. Mobile, IT, E-commerce Related
   2. Railways
   3. Housing and misc.
   4. Black money names
   5. Automobile
   6. Pharmacy

Sports: Oct 2014

17th ASIAN games

Mascots of 2014 ASIAN games

Vichuon	light
Barame	Wind
Chumuro	dance

 

More basics

Theme	“Diversity shines here”
2014	Games at Incheon, S.Korea Para Asian Games (for disabled) also held here.
2018	Games at Indonesia.
India’s flagbearer	Indian hockey team captain Sardar Singh.
India’s Chef-de-mission	Adille J. Sumariwalla

• Highest medal tally: China > S.Korea > Japan
• India on 8th number. (in 2012, we were at 7th rank)
• India won total 57 medals — 11 gold, 10 silver and 36 bronze.
• Since it is humanly impossible to mugup 57’s list. I’m focusing only on the “high-profile” winners. You may get the full list on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_at_the_2014_Asian_Games#Medalists

 

Gold List not exhaustive, only high profile names

Wrestling 65 kg	Yogeshwar Dutt
Mixed Tennis	Sania Mirza Saketh Myneini
Women boxing 51 kg	Mary Kom
Hockey	Team India
Kabbadi- both men and women teams	Team India

 

Silver: List not exhaustive

Squash	Women: Dipika Pallikal, Joshna Chinappa Men: Saurav Ghosal
Discus	Vikas Gowda

 

Bronze: List not exhaustive

10m Air-Rifles	Abhinav Bindra.
Tennis Singles	Yuki Bhambri
Women’s doubles	Sania Mirza Prarthana Thombare
Badminton	Sania Nehwal PV Sindhu Ashwini Ponnappa

Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ)

• Not for profit company by noted Sportsmen such as Geeth Sethi, Prakasha Padukone, Leander Paes, V.Anand etc.
• other than the President of India, only Olympic gold medallists have the power to raise the Indian national flag in a foreign land, accompanied by the national anthem.
• OGC funding has helped Indian athletes win medals in Asian games. Next task: 8 gold medals in Rio Olympics in 2016.

Hockey

• Indian defeated Pakis in 17th ASIAN Games at Incheon, South Korea.
• India had Won ASIAN games last time in 1998.
• Now India got direct ticket to mains exam i.e. Rio Olympics 2016.
• Pakis will have to write prelims i.e. qualifying match to get Rio ticket.

Terry Walsh	Australian coach of India hockey team. He had resigned after ASIAN games but now took back his resignation.
Sultan of Johor	Under-21 hockey title. India defeated Great Britain
MS Dhoni	Bought Ranchi team of Hockey India league.

HERO Indian Super league Football

• IMG and Reliance joint venture has launched this IPL type business model, for Football.
• TV Partner: Star channel.
• First season began in Kolkata from Oct 2014.
• Final match yet to be played.

Peter Biaksangzuala

During Indian Mizoram Premier League match, hem made a “Backflip” to celebrate his goal, injured his back and died.

World Kabaddi League (WKL)

• Chairman: Punjab’s Dy.CM Sukhbir Singh Badal. TV partner: Sony.
• First season in August 2014, will run upto December 2014! Total 94 matches in double round robin format.
• Abhiskeh Bachchan bought Jaipur team.
• Yoyo Honey Singh, Akshay Kumar, Sonaxi Sinha etc also own teams.
• So far, 23 players caught for using steroids.

Tennis

WTA Finals in Singapore

event	Won	lost
Singles	Serena Williams (USA)	Not important
Doubles	Sania Mirza (India) Cara Black (Zimbabwe)	Peng Shuai, China Hsieh Su-wei, Taipei

 

China Open 2014

Category	Won	lost
women	Maria Sharapova	Petra Kvitova
men	Novak Djokovic	Tomas Berdych

 

Shanghai Open 2014

Category	Won	lost
Single man	Federer (Swiz)	Not important
Doubles men	Bob and Mike Bryan (USA)	Not important

 

Paris Open 2014

Category	Won	lost
Single man	Djokovic (Sebia)	Not important
Doubles men	Bob and Mike Bryan (USA)	Not important

Misc.

Mary Kom	Samsung Most valuable player (MVP)
Pankaj Advani	Defeated Singapore’s Peter Ghilchrist in world billards championship Now he owns 3 titles: the IBSF World 6—Red Snooker, World Team Billiards and World Billiards Championship (point format)
Chess	World chess championship (under-10) title, Nihal Sarin

Sportsmen in controversy

IPL match fixing probe

SC commission for IPL-6 Spot fixing

Chairman	Retired justice Mukul Mudgal
Members	Additional Solicitor General L. Nageswara Rao Advocate Nilay Datta Narcotics Dy.DG B.B. Mishra Ex-cricketer Sourav Ganguly

They’ve submitted report. Next hearing on 10th Nov.

Main heros in match-fixing

Cricketers	S.Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan
Son in law	BCCI President N.Srinivasan’s Son in Law Gurunath Meiyappan
Bollywood	Dara Singh’s son Vindoo Dara Singh.

Paes vs Patriotism

Sports-minister	Leander Paes
Government won’t give financial aid to athletes who remain unavailable for national duty. This remark indirectly made against Leander Paes because he did not attend ASIAN games, because he wanted to compete in ATP matches.	But I’ve not got any financial aid from Government since 2012.

Sarita Devi’s boxing medal

• During ASIAN games 2014, Sarita Devi had dominated her 60kg semifinals against Korean boxer Ji-Na Park. Yet Sarita Devi declared loser and given bronze medal.
• Later she refused to accept medal during ceremony.
• But Olympic council of Asia gave her stern warning. So she apologized and took the medal.

New development:

• International Boxing Association has suspended L. Sarita Devi, her coaches and Indian chef-de-mission Adille J. Sumariwalla from future boxing events for this ‘indiscipline’.

Foreign players in controversy

Michael Phelps	Olympic champion swimmer. USA Swimming body suspended him for 6 months for drunk driving.
Oscar Pistorius	2012: He was first double amputee to compete @Olympics and paralympics at London. Got 5 years jail for shooting girlfriend in South Africa.

Business GK: October 2014

Relevance in exam? Mainly at one place: MBA interviews. After you give the sales pitch on “Why MBA?”, panel usually ask the bizGK questions to test your awareness.

IMF’s GDP forecast Oct-2014

Year	India	China
2014	5.6	7.4
2015	6.5	7.1

 

Oil and gold

Oil	$83 per barrel Lowest in 4 years
Gold	Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). New facility: get your gold tested at local BIS office. If quality less than A&H hallmark then A&H will have to pay fine to customer. A&H: Assaying and Hallmarking (A&H) Centre.

Mobile, IT, E-commerce Related

Google

• CEO Larry Page
• India born executive Sundar Pichai is now in-charge of googel’s internet products, search engine, google+, adwords.

Orkut is shut down.

• 2004: Both Orkut and Facebook were started. Orkut was named after google employee Orkut Büyükkökten.
• 2008: Orkut had 3 times more members than Facebook. 1.3 crore in India alone.

services

• New email service “inbox”. But user can join only on “invitation”.
• Google re-designed its search page to load faster on slow-internet mobile phones. On such phones, google will not display images and maps.

Blippar	Google app using augmented reality technology Point your smartphone at any object, and the app will launch an advertisement or discount offer related to it.
HealthMemo	Google App to store medical records of the patient. Designed by a Chennai group.
Apple and Facebook	They’ll cover the costs of women employees who want to freeze their eggs to delay child-birth, to focus on their career.
WhatsApp	founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton finally received Facebook shares worth $9 billion for selling their app. Jan Koum will join as a board of director in Facebook. >500 million whatsapp users in Brazil, India, Mexico and Russia.
Flipkart	Fiasco during “Big billion day” sales offer. Discounted products sold out too quickly. Commerce minister said they’ll look at the issue, but now she says no inquiry against flipkart.
Facebook	Mark Zuckerberg visits India, meets Modi, announces $1 million fund  to develp apps for farmers, migrants and women. Facebook safety checkap. A tool that lets users notify friends and family that they are safe after natural disasters.
Apple	CEO Tim Cook revealed he is gay. Apple pay: mobile payment system. You can flash iphone to pay for food, cloths and goods at certain retail stores.
Vodafone	Won 1800 Mhz spectrum in Feb 2014 auction. But Government hasn’t given the ‘delivery’ yet.
Xiomi	Chief Lei Jun. Not selling phones in USA yet, because worried that Apple will sue it for design patents. Began shifting data from its Chiese servers after privacy concerns of foreign customers. Indian Airforce has ordered its staff not to use Xiomi phones because of this chinese angle.
Lenovo	Chief: Yang Yuanquing Completed the acquisition of Motorola from Google, worth ~3 billion USD. Now, largest smart phone makers in India: Samgsung > Micromax > Lenovo.
Yahoo	CEO Marissa Mayer will shut down India R&D centre to reduce costs
Microsoft	It’ll drop “Nokia” name from Lumia phones. So, in future, they’ll be called “Microsoft Lumia”. Nokia 130’: color screen, built-in music player with up to 46 hours continuous playback on a single charge, for Rs. 1,649 in India.
Nokia	Ajey Mehta MD. Will shut down Sriperumbudur SEZ-factory near Chennai from 1st November 2014.
Reliance	Wants to Merge Reliance Jio Infocomm and its long distance services arm Infotel. Isha Mukesh Ambani joined Reliance Jio’s Board Akash Mukesh Ambani joined Reliance Retail ventures.
Snapdeal	Got ~630 million$ funding Japan’s softbank Ebay and Ratan Tata also own stakes in this company.
Infosys	Founder N. R. Narayana Murthy will not continue as the Chairman Emeritus of Infosys.
Samsung	Lowest profit in 3 years. Galaxy sales down after arrival of Iphone 6.
Raymond	Launched online shopping store “Raymondnext.com”
Cognizant	Bought Cadient group for digital marketing in USA.
Amazon	CEO Jeffery P. Bezos met Modi. Plans to invest $2 billion in India

Telecom subscriber base in India

• Total ~95 crore.
• Largest subscribers base: Idea
• In 2014, Most new customers added to: Vodafone > Aircel > Idea.
• BSNL: lost 50,000 customers.

Railways

India railways

• Plans to privatize the ticket selling ops. Under this scheme, private player can open booth in railway station to sell tickets.
• Premium Tatkal scheme launched in 80 trains. It’ll change tatkal ticket price dynamically as per demand rush.

Tokyo Bullet train

• Completed 60 years on 1st October
• Highest speed 300 but avg. speedwise Chinese trains faster.
• Maglev technology: Magnetic levitation
  • China: >400 kmph
  • Japan trials: >500 kmph

Housing and misc.

Tata	Launched site to purchase homes “online”. Tatavaluehomes.com
DLF	Its boss KP Singh had hidden info. regarding pending legal cases during 2007’s IPO. SEBI has banned DLF from sharemarket and from upcoming REIT real estate investment trust funds.
BSE	BSE and United Stock Exchange of India Ltd (USE) plan to merge their ops.
JP Morgan Chase	User accounts hacked.

Black money names

Pankaj Lodhiya	Gold trader from Rajkot, Gujarat
Pradip Dabar	Belongs to Darab group family
Radha Timblo	Miner and Hotelier from Goa.

Automobile

CKD mode	Government has importsed 75% custom duty on Imported bikes above 800CC capacity. So, foreign companies sending “Completely knocked down” (CKD) bike-kits. They’re assembled at Indian facilities. Lower tax, cheaper MRP.
Peugeot	World’s Oldest scooter mfg. company from France. Mahindra group wants to buy 51% in it.
Renault	French automobile company. Wants to sell used cars in India.

Pharmacy

Cipla	New drug “Onbrez” for respiratory diseas. It is low-cost generic version of Novarti’s Indacaterol. Cipla will also setup a mfg. unit in Iran
Eli Lilly	Cycloserin drug for MDR-TB gave license to India’s Shasun Chemicals.
Delamanid	New MDR-TB. Just got clinical trial approval from WHO

For other parts visit Mrunal.org/PIN.